On Wednesday, the Cabinet approved an additional ₹19,500 crore funding for the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for the manufacture of high-efficiency solar modules. The government expects this cash support to catalyse investment worth ₹94,000 crore in a sector that's highly dependent on imports, creating domestic capacity of about 65 GW of fully and partially integrated solar photovoltaic modules. With this move, the government is looking to reduce India's dependence on imported solar modules and create a more robust domestic solar manufacturing industry.
The government has issued letters of award to Reliance New Energy Solar, Adani Infrastructure and Shirdi Sai Group for the ₹4,500-crore first tranche of PLI on National Programme on High-Efficiency Solar PV Modules.
The cabinet also approved changes to enhance the incentive structure for the manufacture of semiconductors, display fabs and compound semiconductors. With these changes, the PLI scheme is expected to attract an investment of ₹1.4 lakh crore and generate direct and indirect employment for over 2 lakh people.